Socrates Sherlock - A Study In Pink AU pt1
by SunnyDear
Summary: An AU where Sherlock is Socrates - rude, obnoxious Socrates whose great joy in life was to ask people questions which made them look incredibly foolish. This is the first part of my A Study in Pink AU featuring William Sherlock Socrates Holmes, when he and John met for the first time at 221B Baker Street. Prompt idea from promptaholics.


**The story of how I almost called the police on my new flatmate**

Before I met Sherlock Holmes, I had thought that I knew many wise and noble men. I now have come to realise that I, in fact, know none. For it seemed that Sherlock could, with little more than a hundred words, make even the most learned seem unbelievably foolish.

Before I met the bloody man, Stanford warned me he was "a bit, well, he's the sort of man who gets punched in the nose and deserves it." I hadn't believed it, but when I came around to the flat later that day at Baker Street, I saw what he meant immediately.

"Watson? John Watson, army doctor invalided home from Afghanistan now searching for affordable accommodation?" were his first words to me as he stood in the doorway dressed in some sort of awful cross between a dressing gown and a hospital robe. "Well then doctor, by all means come in, come in and sit down, sit down in the armchair and we will talk."

His way of speaking was making me feel almost dizzy, the way he pulled up the tone of his voice just before he paused, only to plough on without taking a breath until he got to the end of the sentence. He took his time on the last words of each phrase, stressing each hard consonant and lingering on select vowels. He strode into the sitting room without so much as a backward glance, leaving me standing somewhat awkwardly in the doorway still holding my cane and wearing my coat. When I finally made it into the armchair he had indicated, he still hadn't settled. Instead, he moved about the room like a whirlwind, his ridiculous garment billowing behind him as he adjusted the curtains, swept some papers in the general direction of a drawer and corrected the position of a skull on the mantelpiece. When he was satisfied these little things were in order, he did a sort of twirly spin and sat down in the armchair facing me next to the fireplace, crossing his legs and straightening the neck of his robe in one smooth move. For a moment he sat back and watched me, his roughly shaven face giving away nothing. Then he leaned forward and rested his chin on his crossed hands, and I felt the interrogation was about to begin.

"Any good?'

"Pardon?"

"You're a doctor. Any good?"

"Ah, yes. Yes, I know what I'm doing. How did you-"

"Hmm." He changed his position yet again – he seemed to be unable to keep still for more than a few seconds at a time. Leaning back, his right hand reached out and started turning a small black object over and over on the arm of his seat.

"Limp. Psychosomatic?"

"Yes, but-"

"Brother. No good?"

"Ah, Harry's not exactly-" I saw his eyebrows contract briefly, and decided to cut my answer down to the least number of syllables possible so I could squeeze out a question before he ploughed on. "No. No good. How did you know I had a brother?"

He held out the object in his right hand to me, and I saw it was my bloody phone. I looked beside me at the coffee table where I'd put it – he must have picked it up as he passed, and I hadn't noticed a thing.

"Right, I'll have that back, thank you." I reached out to take it, and he withdrew his hand, still holding my phone. The corners of his mouth lifted a little.

"Why didn't you reconcile with your brother?" his thumb traced over the words engraved on the back. "His marriage just ended, I'm sure he's now emotionally compromised and longs for companionship. Granted, he was the one ending it, but still. Unless of course you were the reason for his divorce, which I'm guessing you're not."

"No, no wait. How did you-"

"Oh for God's sake. Was this his phone or wasn't it?" he said impatiently.

"Yes, it was Harry's-"

"It was a gift, wasn't it?"

"Yes, the engraving-"

"Would a girlfriend buy her boyfriend such an expensive phone?"

"Er, no, I suppose-"

"If a man's marriage wasn't in trouble, would he give away a gift from his wife?"

"No, but-"

"If a man was devastated at his wife walking out on him, he would keep keepsakes such as this, yes or no?"

"Yes."

He raised his eyebrows. "Well then."

I couldn't help feeling quite stupid, sitting there as this man shot questions at me which had such obvious answers. He seemed to me both a genius and slightly mad.

"Now, you presumably still have problems with his love of alcohol, or you wouldn't be sitting here. Am I right?"

I didn't ask how this time, but he answered me anyway. Mutely, he flipped my phone to show me the socket, laced with small scratches. Then he made quite a show of miming unsteady hands and a drunken expression while plugging in an imaginary chord before carelessly tossing it back to me.

Yup, the urge to punch him in the nose, I'm feeling it now. Just for the satisfaction of throwing him, I said rather cuttingly:

"Harry's short for Harriet."

I felt a brief sense of smugness when I saw is eyes widen minutely. The pleasure was rather short lived, as a stab of annoyance which had nothing to do with being bested shot through me when he wrinkled his nose in disgust.

"Look, if you've got a problem with-"

He interrupted me yet again. "Did I say I had a problem with homosexuals?"

I have to admit I was a bit taken aback by his outright manner. "No." I said, somewhat reluctantly.

"I was annoyed I hadn't considered Harry might be short for something. Do _you_ have a problem with me making faces?" he arranged his expression into one of the utmost condescension and sarcasm.

"No."

"Well then."

I tried to feel abashed, I honestly did, it was just his way of saying that little phrase, "well then", which got to me. My fingers twitched. A good hit to those cheekbones, wouldn't do him too much harm.

"So, potential flatmate, would it bother you if I didn't talk for days on end?"

"No, that would be fine." By this stage, I would have considered it a blessing if he didn't talk at all.

While I contemplated whether or not I could afford to turn down the supreme location in view of an unpleasant flatmate, he reached over and grabbed a violin which had been resting haphazardly on the coffee table. He started playing nonsensical chords and generally making the most awful sounds a violin could make, all the while staring intently at me. I really couldn't make head or tail of his behaviour. After what felt like an eternity of this, he put his bow down and rested the poor instrument on the floor next to him.

"So, no problem with violin playing." he sounded satisfied.

"Oh, so that was violin playing?" I said rather cuttingly.

The exasperated expression came out again as he reached down and picked up the violin. Before I could brace myself for another assault of sound, he began to play. An actual tune. I didn't recognise it, familiar though it was. He played on and on, and I must admit it was fascinating to watch him. His long fingers moved so easily over the fingerboard, his intonation so sure, his vibrato sometimes rich and vibrant, sometimes no more than a light flutter just before he left that particular note behind. His posture – the way he leaned into his bows was not a bit underdone or over-exaggerated. Sometimes he tapped his foot, sometimes he seemed to simply keep the rhythm with a slight lift of his chin. I could almost say I was entranced at this man who was undoubtedly one of the most talented musicians I ever had the fortune to hear play.

Apparently the elderly lady staggering in weighed down by half a dozen shopping bags was a regular occurrence, because he didn't even turn around.

"Beautiful tune, Sherlock." she remarked as she hurried into the kitchen, craning her head to look at me as she passed. "And hello, who are you?"

I scrambled for my cane and stood up, giving the violin bow a wide berth as I moved around the sofa. "Ah, hello, I'm John Watson. I'm, er, here about the flat."

"Oh, that's nice. I'm Mrs Hudson, the landlady." she said warmly, ignoring my hand and patting my arm. She continued talking, addressing the back of his head. "I wasn't told about you, was I Sherlock? Is that Tchaikovsky's Serenade for Strings? Wouldn't have thought you could play it with just one violin."

"Could, did." he said brusquely, cutting off his playing mid-phrase. "Mrs Hudson, John is an army doctor. John, I've just realised I have never properly introduced myself. William Sherlock Socrates Holmes. Don't call me William." He extended his hand to me over his shoulder, which I shook, feeling somewhat lost.

"Oh Sherlock." said Mrs Hudson in a tone which clearly implied she thought herself not fooled. "Do you want me to break out those nice pillow cases Mrs Turner got me last Christmas? You remember I showed you, they have such a lovely floral pattern and they'll go so well with your carpet, oh where have I put them… Must be in the spare room. You haven't done anything awful with them have you?" Her voice trailed off as she descended back down the stairs.

"No no no _no no no no don't go in there-"_ Sherlock leaped off the sofa, his violin still tucked under his arm.

"Or is he going in the room upstairs? We'll need to air those before he moves in."

_"Don't go in there, don't go in there!"_

"Are the two of you going to be in for dinner?"

"_I SAID, don't go in there!"_

"Because you really don't have _anything_ to feel em-"

_"MRS HUDSON!"_

"Oh all right, whatever it is you've done in there you're the one who's going to clean it up."

The situation was definitely getting out of hand. I had barely descended three stairs when Sherlock pushed rudely past me on his way up, followed by the still chattering Mrs Hudson.

"And to think, even after Mrs Turner next door, oh hello doctor, I'll just run up and open those windows. You might want to dust a bit before you move in, no-one's been in there for ages and Sherlock can't stand hoovering." she said the last four words in a conspiracy-like whisper as she passed me.

"If you don't mind, Mrs Hudson, I actually haven't quite decided-" I tried, resignedly making my way back into the sitting room, but she wasn't listening. Neither of them were. I stood there at quite a loss as Sherlock whirled around the room again, straightening furniture, while Mrs Hudson continued on talking unintelligibly upstairs.

"So doctor." Sherlock said over his shoulder as he strode into the kitchen. "When do you move in?"

"Well, _if_ I move in," I stressed the word 'if' especially, "I think-"

"Oh come on, we both know you can't afford anywhere else in London. A richer man would have walked out long ago and told me to piss off as he slammed the front door." he spun around to face me, holding up a mug. "Tea? You can have this mug, it's been here for ages and it's hideous so no-one's ever touched it."

Mrs Hudson chose this moment to come back downstairs.

"Oh Sherlock, you're making tea, I'll do that. Never let him make the tea." she informed me. "He-"

"-So you're staying?" Sherlock interrupted.

I looked from one to the other, feeling like I was in a TV sitcom. William Sherlock Socrates Holmes stood there looking like he'd just come off the streets with his bare feet and bathrobe. And Mrs Hudson, who was apparently accustomed to scrutinising every teabag carefully before she put it in a mug, put her head around the kitchen door to hear my answer. I sucked in a deep breath.

"Yes, yes I'm staying. I'll have the room upstairs." I took care to stress, looking at Mrs Hudson. She beamed at me.

"Well then." Sherlock sounded pleased. "And, by the way, how do you feel about dead bodies?"

The question startled me a little. "I'm an army doctor, it doesn't bother me."

"How about murder?"

"Never been involved in one."

He put his head on one side. "Could you step into the spare room downstairs for a minute? I just need your quick professional opinion on something."

That, ladies and gentlemen, is the story of how I almost called the police on my new flatmate.


End file.
